So Amarok 2.0 is officially out, and equally exciting is that for the first time Windows is one of it’s supported operating systems (though they are still working somewhat on windows support). I had trouble with Mp3 support at first but found a post that enabled me to get it working rather quickly.

Here are some relevant links and a Screenshot for ya.

KDE on windows project (a windows equivalent of a package manager to install the KDE files including Amarok 2.0)

How to airbrush a photo using the GIMP:

Now, she’s not ugly and doesn’t need airbrushing per se, this is just a rather rough image. (BTW if you own this image and don’t want it displayed here D: that would suck but email me at soundbiteilluminations on my gmail account ie blank@gmail.com)

Lets get down to buisness!

Note: Save a copy of the original picture in a separate layer for reference

Step 1:

adjust the color of the picture a bit using the hue-saturation tool (colors/hue-saturation)

eyeball it to make it look a little brighter, take the hue up a couple of notches, lightness up a bit, and the saturation down couple of notches.

looks like that.

Step 2:

Create a duplicate of this layer by pressing the create a duplicate layer button on the layers, channels, paths, undo dock.

Step 3:

Use the Healing tool and Clone tool to clean the image making sure you pay attention to the areas I’ve circled.

Also go for any marks and lines you see, the cleaner you get the image the smoother the airbrush will turn out.

heres a relatively quick job that I’ve done.

Step 4:

Use the Oilify filter (Filters/Artistic/Oilify) on the copy that you have cleaned up with the settings: layermask size 15, exponent 3, and check use exponent map.

The result should look like this.

Step 5:

Right click on the copy, add a layer mask and click on full transparency

Step 6:

Paint the new skin on by using the paintbrush tool to draw in white ON THE LAYER MASK. Leave edges around the eyes, the outside of the face, the lips, the eyebrows, and the nostrils so we don’t loose details.

looks better but still rough eh?

Step 7:

The layers aren’t blending very well colorwise so lets use hue-sat (Colors/hue-saturation) on the copy layer NOT THE LAYER MASK -6 hue to blend to bottom layer

Step 7 ½:

I decided to use the background layer under the “airbrush” layer as it ended up looking better.

Step 8:

Use the airbrush tool ON THE LAYER MASK in white to blend the two layers; taking care not to cover up eyelashes, or strong lines like nostrels, using the airbrush tool in black to undo instead of the black paintbrush.

this part take the longest by FAR.

And there you have it! If you’ve got any questions or suggestions just email me at the email listed above, or leave a comment.